My hair is still damp from the rain and I flick the tips towards a stranger. Where we can powder our noses? we ask you because it is necessary to transform ourselves with carefully placed kirby grips and shiny lips. You start to give directions but your voice fades because your eyes watch an elderly woman who has spilled red wine on her silk dress and has several people pawing unhelpfully at her dress with napkins. We hear her say, Thank you ever so much, laughing so her curls shake like chocolate shavings on a dessert. Follow her, you say.
Posts Tagged ‘wine’
Day 38
Posted in Age: 31-40, Gender: Male, Location: Arts Venue, tagged city, conversations, creative writing, literature, london, One Hundred Days To Make Me A Better Person, rain, strangers, wine, writing on December 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Day 37
Posted in Age: 51-60, Gender: Female, Location: Shop/Market, tagged city, compact, conversations, creative writing, gemma seltzer, grandma, literature, london, market, One Hundred Days To Make Me A Better Person, Paul O'Grady, strangers, wine, writing on December 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Both of you are drinking wine. The shop is dusty and lacy. I pick handkerchiefs out of a basket whilst you hear each other’s opinions on Paul O’Grady. He should have his own prime time show. The jokes he tells! I lean on the counter and talk about my grandma’s compact, how it smashed when I dropped it down an escalator. I’d forgotten this sadness. You show me a mirror decorated with a thistle, once owned by another person’s relative. Your friend rummages inside her handbag, desperately seeking something. I smile an attempt at a smile and arrow towards the door.
Day 30
Posted in Age: 41-50, Gender: Female, Location: Arts Venue, tagged award, canapes, city, conversations, creative writing, literature, london, PJ Harvey, strangers, wine on November 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »
You remind me of PJ Harvey: eyeshadow in green streaks and the dark, vague look of you. You have a clipboard and you introduce us to someone and point to the canapés. The way you do this is efficient and swift. And then you’re gone. There are three judges, two speeches and one award. I have a glass of wine and I know I’ll have more. Things happen, or they don’t happen. Later, city sunset over you, you’re bleary and searching for name badges. I think about how we really are all pretending to know what we say we know.
Day 13
Posted in Age: 21-30, Gender: Female, Location: Café/Restaurant, tagged city, conversations, creative writing, literature, london, macaroons, strangers, tea, wine, writing on November 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »
You’re not an attention seeker, you just wanted to know if we liked the cakes. We don’t answer you until you are out of earshot. I think we are unlikely to be friends. You are not someone who drives to work and has a designated carking space. You have an apron and crumbs on your fingers. You spill my drink and mop it up with a dirty cloth and I talk over your apology because I’m not in the mood for this. I look at the couple on the next table: nine macaroons, a bottle of wine and holding hands.
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